A good week

Well, it has been a good week.  Fun, creative, and productive.  I am proud of myself for doing what I said I would do--got "in the studio" by 8:30 a.m., which also stopped me from going back to bed and wasting the day.  I also managed to avoid floundering about what I wanted to do, thanks to all the thinking I did in the last couple of weeks about what I hope to achieve this year.  I've got goals!  :-)  

These first pics are of the little book I cut pages for last week, mentioned in my last blog post.  I made covers for it from white presentation board.  So far I have decorated only the front of the front cover, but I was pleased with it.  The tree is from a KaiserCraft wood piece (used as a mask), and the rest of the materials used include Adirondack Color Washes, thin Prismacolor markers,  Distress Ink pads, and Sharpie poster paint markers.

I love trees, with or without leaves

Last night while occupying myself in the lobby of the Brushy Creek Community Center during the kids' taekwondo classes, I put myself to work using some of the doodle ideas from Traci's Strathmore workshop on one of the inside pages.  It was fun!  I mainly used a Micron pen, but there are a few bits of a blue Sharpie poster paint marker as well.  Adding the border transformed the page, and also I noticed again how extremely useful Zentangling has been for helping me doodle.  I do remember that I used to *love* to doodle when I was in high school and would draw loads and loads of different sizes of circles on pages . . . need to get back to that.

Doodle close-up

Another thing I am really quite pleased with is that I did something new this week:  carved my own stamp!  Traci Bautista's Strathmore workshop had me thinking about this yet again, as I have many times before, and then when I was wandering around Jerry's Artarama early last week I noticed that they had a new kit by Speedball for stamp carving.  Clearly a sign that I was meant to get it and do it!  It is one more way for me to make my art my own.  The kit came with a small piece of pink rubber block, a knife handle and two tips, and tracing paper.  I searched my drawers of stuff for a suitable image and ended up using the top of the palm tree from the Mexican loteria cards (#51).  Traced, transferred, and carved.  It was so much easier than I expected it would be!  I added the lines within the design myself.  It may not look like much to anyone else, but I love it.

On Friday I finally made a decision about what kind of book to make. One of my goals this year is to become much more familiar and practiced with different book structures. Often I get bogged down in aspects of that which I think I "should" do . . . so this time I decided that my goal was simply to practice the book form, and thus I wasn't going to add pressure to myself to embellish or create the perfect cover at the same time.   Voila--unblocked.

I measured and cut boards, sanded the edges, and cut paper from a beautiful sheet I'd gotten from Hollander's a couple of years ago.  I have found that I have an unsettling & probably unhealthy urge to hoard supplies for the "perfect" use, but I am coming to realize there is no such thing.  So with nary a qualm I pulled out the paper and cut it up for this project.  (With some of the scraps I even made a smaller book.)  I did not yet get to the point of punching holes in the signatures or the covers; that will come this week.

Small boards (3-1/2" square) covered
with scrap from the big notebook

My plan is to do my first caterpillar stitch.  It's not exactly clear to me how one attaches the signatures, since normally one works up from the back cover and this caterpillar appears to go the opposite way, but it did occur to me yesterday that I can do the cover stitching, and when I get to the signatures, I can just turn the whole thing 180 degrees so that I feel I am adding signatures from the back cover to the front.  Hopefully that will work.

The little book came out quite cute.  As the covers are 3-1/2" square, I cut the pages to be 3-1/4" square.  I used many different shades of Archiver's card stock that I thought would look good with the book cover:  kraft, cabernet, pomegranate splash, pastel yellow, carob cream, neutral tan, pear crush, natural, cream white, sugar cream, and fudge cover.  The point was for this to be quick and easy (and not lay around half-finished for weeks or months), so I used my new Cinch 2 that I got in a great post-Thanksgiving Day sale.  Worked great!

Finally, at the weekend I came across the site of Marilyn Scott-Waters, and from it I did the following little cover for a 5x8" ruled pad.  It was easy and took all of about 10 minutes to do, and it gave me some great ideas for making my own.  Plus it is something my daughter will like and also something she can help me do.

Front cover, added to a 5x8"
lined notepad from Office Depot

The inside has a pocket;
I covered up the Office Depot logo
as best I could with lace tape

So upcoming this week I seem to have lots of social engagements and not that many days of uninterrupted creative time.  Thus I am setting goals that I think I can accomplish without pressurizing myself:  do the last week of Traci Bautista's workshop, and complete the caterpillar book.  Ought to be able to get my head around that!

Brainstorming Likes

In the interests of thinking about putting something personal into my art rather than having it be simply well-executed, I'll go back to the beginning and think about what I like at the moment:

--small glass bottles
--metal
--iridescent and interference colors, things that change as you look from a different angle

That's where I paused. Interesting--nothing very organic there, all hard things. Pretty, cool (rather than warm) things.

I don't think any images I like come to mind--too hard to get everyone else's stuff out of my head. But as I write that, I realize I do really, really like architecture plans and blueprint drawings, so that's something. I also love maps. So back to the bulleted list:

--architectural plans and drawings
--maps
--beautiful handwriting

Not bad for a new beginning!

A Quiz, Somerset Studio May/June 2009, p. 75

What are your three favorite colors?
Blue.
Red.
Green (learned to like this because so many of my aunts like it, and I make things for them).
Fourth would be purple.

What kind of architecture do you like?
I like a lot of things. The English half-timbered look with leaded glass panes is a favorite, as is the English cottage. I like the Spanish villa style and love the look of the French Quarter and the Garden District in New Orleans (pre-Katrina).

I do not like the rows of terraced Victorian houses, nor do I particularly like modern unless it's done very, very well. I don't care much for Greek or symmetry in my buildings. What I do like is warm, inviting, welcoming, cozy (of residential). I like a lot of light. I like natural materials rather than synthetic.

What are the three words that describe your personality?
Unassuming.
Listening.
Undemanding.

What is your favorite animal?
Cat.

What do you collect?
It used to be books. Sometimes I would buy a book just because I liked the cover. I also buy blank books and never write in them. Also I love to get small unique serving pieces to use for company--or just myself! Another thing I have always liked are vintage labels. It's really only recently I've given this any thought--I don't think I've ever given myself permission to collect anything before (and am not sure I have yet).

What is your favorite season?
I like them all. Each has different things to recommend it. Spring is lovely because it transforms the landscape, summer is nice because it's so relaxed, fall is great (probably my favorite, I guess) because the coolness is such a welcome relief after the heat of the five-month-long summer here in Central Texas, and the winter is fun because I like snuggling up with throw blankets and hot water bottles (remember, Central Texas, this is a novelty and doesn't last long).

Name your favorite icons.
Not even sure what is meant here. I'll substitute "images" for "icons" and answer it that way. Strong, confident women--goddess, archetype images. Images with that secret air of knowing about a mystery that no one else does. The Serena image that Stampsmith sells--something about the look on her face. I like water images--Japanese waves, still oceans, waterfalls, all of it.

My Goals for Finished Pieces

The more I think about what to make for my challenge pieces with my local friend, the more I find myself thinking about what I like and do not like in my own finished pieces. Even just thinking about what I'm creating has helped me think differently about the pieces I see in a museum. I think I'm broadening my horizons!

One thing I am definitely becoming certain of is that I am firmly in the mixed-media category. Anything else would bore me, but this offers such a wide variety and the potential to keep learning new skills. I also am increasingly that I want all my pieces to have dimension to them. This began even over a year ago when I was still in my homegrown cardmaking workshop year, learning a different technique for each card I made. Just adhering something with foam tape so that it was on a different level than the rest of the piece was brilliant, I thought, and I am now finding that I am always looking for a way to add some dimension or extend something across a border.

Tonight I was contemplating the piece I'm working on for our "beginnings" challenge. It is certainly my most ambitious and I am not at all certain it's going to work out, but even if it doesn't I should learn something from it, so on at least one level it will be a success. Anyway, I realized that it is a personal requirement of mine that first and foremost, I want what I make to be pleasing to the eye. I'm not sure how to put it in any more exact terms--harmonious? pretty? [no, not that]? But some artists want their work to be disturbing on first glance, and I guess that at least at this point, I'm not one of those people. I want what I make to be something I or anyone would want to look at, something that if glanced upon on one's way from room to room, it would give a smile, a sigh of appreciation/pleasure, something like that.

Secondly, after one has simply found the viewing to be pleasing, I'd like the details of the work to be interesting for those (like myself) who find that intriguing. So there needs to be a backstory or amplification of the work that if explored is also satisfying in some way.

I still find great resistance in myself to having words on my pieces (seems way too twee), but this evening I read about Soul Soup and loved some of her poetry that is on her paintings. So maybe sometime in the next two or three months, I will add my own personal stipulation to our monthly challenge that I have to include words on my piece. It would be good for me!

8 July 2008

Oh, I am delighted! Just made Jonathan’s bday card, and with being here in England rather than at home, I was limited in my choice of materials. That can be a good thing!

I started with a pre-folded blank black card that I got yesterday in Wickford. On top I taped a piece of sequinette (sequin waste) and applied Perfect Medium through it. Then I removed the sequinette and brushed on Rust Perfect Pearls.

From a paper of Egyptian panels I cut one out, edged it with black market but decided that wasn’t enough, so edged it with gold Krylon. Mounted with foam tape in upper middle. Along bottom I put a strip of Egyptian adhesive ribbon. Looked good but too raw, so I rubbed some Distress Ink tea dye over the panel and ribbon, and that did the trick. It looks great—even Dale said so with enthusiasm in his voice.

On the inside I put a cartouche, cut out from paper and also edged with gold Krylon, in which I will write “Happy Birthday” in hieroglyphics (if I can find them on the web).


Another technique that interests me is art quilts, and, along related lines, inchies! The idea of taking tiny little perfect things and incorporating them into a larger whole is appealing. What about using inchies to do a mosaic design?

27 June 2008

Tonight I went to my friend A.’s for a pleasant evening of talk and showing our latest creations to each other. I took all the things I mentioned in my last entry, and she showed me how her latest piece has evolved. I could sit and talk all day sharing ideas and suggesting different approaches to things with someone.

She mentioned something that I ended up doing—just smushing the image I’d made of the seashells into the embossing paste before it dried. I hadn’t thought of that, although that’s what she thought I was saying, but I liked it a lot so I did it tonight when I used her brass stencil to make four shadow squares. Then I think when it dries, I’ll use Diamond Glaze to adhere the square + seashell image to a slide, then I can edge that with a Krylon pen, fasten them in a vertical line with beads, and Bob’s your uncle and the thing’s done.

One thing I am finding about this blog is that it’s the most positive experience I’ve ever had with keeping a diary or journal. It’s all positive and full of hope, opportunity, potential—others have always been outlets for negative emotions, but this is curiously uplifting.

Something else to add to my likes list: the way color gets refracted (wrong word?) through facets. I guess just facets themselves are neat; there’s a vague vision of an Escher print involving facets. I’ve always liked the drawings in science books of a single stream of light going into a prism and coming out the other side in 7 different bands of color that fan outwards. Also the way wine in a Waterford cut-glass wineglass looks, or Scotch in a cutglass cocktail glass. Love the way it’s almost like a mosaic, I guess, in that the image is broken up but tantalizingly still there, so that if you looked at it slyly out of the corner of your eye you could see the thing in its entirety.

Another medium I like—mosaics, tiles. Especially the ones done with tiles that have been cut, so they are similarly sized, and form a picture, or even just an archway or some other decorative element.

25 June 2008

Other things I like, that maybe I can figure out how to work into my art: rain, rainstorms, the brightness of things after a rainstorm, being cozy inside when it’s raining outside. I like twilight and I like midnight with lots of stars in the sky. I like campfires outside and I like candles inside. Did I say earlier that I like bare trees? I like water—oceans of it and rivers flowing by. I love the sound of the waves and watching them come in from the deep ocean. I like the way liquids look in a clear glass with light behind them.

A good idea from Claudine Hellmuth is to look at pieces of art that speak to me and analyze them. What first catches my attention—images, colors, placements? Why is the image successful? Note the colors used to get an idea of the color palette the artist used. This would be a good thing to do while in England.

Placement ideas to remember:
For high energy, make focus go from lower left to upper right (try positioning a stamp at an angle).
Use a primary color for focal point of composition.

21 June 2008

Thinking of starting a blog

Creating an art blog--sounds pretentious.  Sounds dangerous.  It seems it's been so long since I indulged in thoughts that were just mine and not about work, my husband, my children, my house . . . even when I do, I feel guilty.  Always there are other things I "should" be doing, and even though I give the advice to others all the time that it should throw up a red flag if you hear yourself saying "should", I find that I don't really have any idea how to do that myself.  I don't give myself permission to do that.  For me, it seems a character flaw to do something for myself rather than spending all day, every day, doing something for everyone else.

Do I have the luxury of stopping to think about these acts of creation?  Isn't it terribly self-indulgent?  And yet my husband has no problem saying "I want this" and making it happen.  Why can't I do that?  Two things seem to be coming together here--I just read The Pull of the Moon, by Elizabeth Berg, and I saw the title "Confessions of a Reluctant Blogger" online for the next issue of Artful Blogging.

It has been such a revelation to me that I can do anything at all worth looking at. I was nearly 37 years old when I found out that I could in fact make “crafty” things that I thought were of acceptable quality and looked “handmade” rather than “homemade”. Never in my life did I think I had any skill or talent for that whatsover. But I can read, and I can follow instructions, and I am meticulous with my craftsmanship—and over time, I am finding, just as with anything else, when exposed to something constantly, you learn how to do it yourself. It’s not a mystery after all. And now I am lost with delight in all the things that surround me at my area—the beautiful colors in the inkpads, the beads in my bead boxes, the marker sets, the colored pencils, and the beautiful artwork on the rubber stamps. Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming that I have gotten so many things so fast, in less than two years, but it’s so exciting to me that I can make something worthwhile. It’s still quite a step from following instructions in a book or recreating something in a magazine to designing my own ideas, but this year I have started to do that, and I find that they are actually not bad.

The hard part is that to design something myself requires some personal involvement. I have to think about things I haven’t thought about in years. I have to express an opinion of my own—do I like it, all by myself? Not would my mother approve, or what would my husband say, but do I like it? That’s a scary question to answer, and I hate it that it is so. On the other hand, at least I’m discovering that at 38 and not 68. I guess I have always sought someone else’s approval, never brave enough to say with any degree of truth, I like that, and I don’t give a shit if no one else does.

And yet here I am, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of a highly esteemed honors undergraduate program, unable to do this? Oh no, that won’t do. No matter how hard this is, I am going to do it and do it well.

Figuring out what I like

So, what am I finding that calls to me? Collage images, always. Old-fashioned advertisements, like seed packets covers, ads from old papers. Maps I have always loved, especially the ones with dragons drawn in the seas. It turns out I really like architectural elements and images, and I love the stamps of women’s faces—the elegant, mysterious ones. I love the illuminated alphabets—the intricate detail and the sometimes fanciful illustrations. Children’s alphabet tiles I also like (even as a child I loved the Edward Gorey alphabet and had a poster of it hanging in my bedroom).

I like glass—slides, vases. I like the Krylon leafing markers. Printed vellums are beautiful—many, many papers out there are beautiful. I love the way fluid chalk looks on cardstock—warmer than permanent ink. I love nearly all the metal embellishments—pictures frames, bards, charms, beads, bookplates—all of them!

One of my biggest struggles is that it’s so hard for me not to line things up perfectly, to chase after symmetry, because the things I love are off-center, overlapping, running off the edge, yet it’s so hard for me to do that myself. I need to relax, loosen up. Have I always been like this?